The second concert highlights the repertoire of the last hundred years in all its guises. The life of Elliott Carter (1908-2012) spanned not only most of the last century - and beyond - but also all the musical trends of the period. A pupil of Nadia Boulanger, he first immersed himself in the atmosphere of the French school of the Thirties before breaking away from the neoclassicism of Stravinsky and Poulenc and having a field day with experiments in instrumental technique and sonorities, rhythm, voice, forms and tempi.

The highly virtuosic Huit Pièces pour quatre timbales (1949-1966) were conceived for a single percussionist and are characterised by their incessant changes of tempo, a technique known as 'metric modulation'. Marc-André Dalbavie (born 1961) is interested in so-called 'spectral' music, in which composition is often determined by a mathematical analysis of sound spectra. Dalbavie's genius lies in his ability to integrate a highly intellectual process with breathtakingly beautiful orchestral colour.

The Concerto for flute and Orchestra (2005) is thus characterised by its very accessible style for the general public, while at the same time being positioned in a French aesthetic. With the American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003), almost a contemporary of Carter's, we touch on another constant of modern music, already evident in the latter's piece, namely the fascination with percussion of all kinds, often using instruments specially built by the composer or using salvaged objects. This is certainly the case with the Concerto for violin and percussion orchestra (1959), whose Allegro final will be heard. The last two works on the programme are by composers who were both exiled from Germany, but for very different reasons. The charming Duett-Concertino for clarinet, bassoon and strings, the swan song of a brief period in Switzerland, does not betray the trials and tribulations of a Richard Strauss (1864-1949) whose proximity to Hitler's regime in 1945 made him less than approachable.

As for the Concerto for String Quartet, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) began it in Berlin in 1933, just before fleeing the rise of Nazism. He completed it in Paris, having just reconverted to Judaism on the eve of his departure for the United States. The composer never concealed his genuine antipathy towards Handel's music, which explains his decision to make a free arrangement of the Concerto grosso Op. 6, No. 7 to "remove all its defects".

The concerts on Friday and Saturday will continue with the synthetic sounds of Electron, Geneva's festival of electronic cultures.